The tourism and hospitality area is one that offers rich potential for the deployment of augmented and virtual reality technologies. Recently Fáilte Ireland showcased Ireland’s Wild Atlantic Way product at the ITB Tourism Fair in Berlin, where users were able to ‘virtually’ explore some of the route’s more iconic landmarks. In the UK, Thomas Cook have recently announced that visitors to their retail outlets will be given the option to use wearable devices which can showcase their entire product portfolio. And Visit Belfast have just launched a VR tour of the city. In the museum sector augmented reality has been used very successfully in the Smithsonian museum in Washington.

At this year’s conference there will be a panel discussion on this sector. Among those participating is Stephen Williams from Winward Management. Stephen was a recent recipient of the ‘Top 20 minds in hospitality marketing’ at the HSMAI Europe conference. Stephen is acknowledged as a leader in deployment of new technologies in the sector, including augmented reality and beacons. Irish company iTagged will also be showcasing some of their technology – their tagging based system of augmented reality is one that has been used by tourists to create numerous crowd-sourced augmented reality tours.